Archived News:

Friday, Jul 06, 2012

IGN reports that Activision is planning a first-person shooter based on The Walking Dead to be developed by Terminal Reality (Terminal Velocity, BloodRayne) for release on PCs and consoles next year. They have a couple of trailers to whet your appetite, and here's the word they have on the game:

Developed by Terminal Reality, The Walking Dead will revolve around Daryl Dixon and his brother Merle on a “haunting, unforgiving quest to make their way to the supposed safety of Atlanta.” Players will control Daryl as they attempt to avoid detection from zombies that hunt using sight, sound and smell and will choose between fighting them or using stealth to avoid detection. According to Activision, “No place is truly safe for Daryl as he makes his way through the Georgia countryside in this new, post-apocalyptic world.”

Supplies will be scarce and players will need to carefully manage food, ammunition and supplies as they make their way through the game. Daryl will encounter “a slew of other characters” along the way that can help or hurt him. Whether or not these characters accompany Daryl is completely up to the player and “represents just some of the major decisions that will constantly be made while fighting to survive.”

In other The Walking Dead game news, The Verge has word that Telltale Games plans to release the first season of their episodic RPG based on the zombie series in stores once the final episode is released, and this will not be their last series based on the IP. "Following the digital release of our fifth episode we will also be coming to North American retail shortly thereafter," says senior vice president of marketing Steve Allison. "And this will not be the last The Walking Dead game series that we do."

Curiosity is due on August 22nd, reports Eurogamer from the Rezzed show, saying the Windows, Android, and iOS versions of Peter Molyneux's next game will all come at that time. They have comments from the designer about the mystery that's central to the game, saying its answer "is so valuable, and so life-changingly important," adding (hopefully wryly) "It's so amazing I think it will appear on news reports." He also defends the game's preposerous DLC scheme, saying a $50,000 virtual pickaxe is "nothing to be ashamed of."

Gearboxity offers a look at "Veteran Rewards" in Borderlands 2 for players of the original Borderlands. Here's what owners of the original first-person shooter/RPG can expect: "Borderlands 2 will reward veterans of the first Borderlands with exclusive character customization elements -- here's a look at the character heads and skins that are unlocked when Borderlands 2 detects save data from the original Borderlands!"

The Drox Operative patches page has new patches to update the Windows and OS X betas of Soldak Entertainment's action/RPG to version 0.907. Here's the summary: "This patch gives the player more information about the internals of the races, fixes an end game issue, greatly increases the rewards of destroying race ships and planets, and fixes a lot of other little things." The full change log has all the details.

The Alien Arena Website now offers downloads of the Alien Arena: Reloaded Edition, a new and improved version of this freeware first-person shooter. Word is: "This is a major release of this game, with many new features, and a veritable truckload of new high quality content. Every aspect of the game has been improved upon and expanded, from the engine, to the game code, weaponry, and overall game play." This change log has the complete outline of what's new.

Rockstar Games announces this is a double XP weekend for Max Payne 3, beginning with a live streaming event later today. The times they offer for this don't seem to completely add up, but here's the stated plan:

To join us, simply log on to Max Payne 3 multiplayer on your platform of choice and select the ‘Social Club Multiplayer Event’ option from the in-game Playlists menu, and look out for one of our official Rockstar players, marked with a special visible in-game dog tag logo:

The annual summer sale on Steam has become a significant enough event that there have been murmurs of concern from the gaming community because Valve hasn't been talking about it. A post to the Steam Users' Forums by Valve's Mike Blaszczak should offer the necessary reassurance: "We are planning a sale sometime this summer. Hope that helps!" Thanks VG247 via GameTrailers.

Paradox Interactive and Fatshark announce they are accepting applications for beta testing of War of the Roses, following completion of alpha testing of the upcoming DeVito-free strategy game. You can sign up on this page, and they explain how you can leverage your social media connections to ensure a spot in the test: "When signing up to guarantee their access to enter the beta, future knights will obtain a unique referrer URL from the King that can be shared across social media channels. When five friends use this player-specific link to sign up for the beta, the player who is linked to the URL will be granted a secure spot in the beta."

The Of Orcs And Men Website is now online as the official home to this upcoming fantasy RPG in the works at Cyanide Studios and Spiders. This includes the release of their summer trailer for the game, and here is what they have to say about that: "This gorgeous video lets you discover more about the story and the universe of the game. It unveils some of the many places you'll explore on your quest while playing as Arkaïl, a fearsome Orc warrior from the legendary legion of Bloodjaws, and Styx, a Goblin master of the assassin arts. Sent on a suicide mission at the heart of the Empire of Men, these two atypical heroes who don't otherwise get along will have to unite their efforts and skill to make their perilous mission a success: to assassinate the Emperor of Men himself."

It took a while, but I finally got around to using some of those Naga Jolokia peppers we picked up, creating some especially hot chicken wings. I used one pepper in a batch of 36 wings along with the normal spices I would add, and the result was both incredibly hot and incredibly delicious. The peppers have a great quality to them besides the heat, and the wings hit that perfect level of *almost* too hot. Quite glorious, and since we'll have some spice loving guests over this weekend, I think I'll be making some more.